Judge: DNA testing request moot in 1991 slaying

DNA evidence requested by a man convicted in a 1991 murder case has been deemed moot after a judge and defense attorneys determined it doesn't exist anymore.

The attorney for 58-year-old Charles Bussell, Krista Dolan, told Christian Circuit Court Judge Andrew Self that the DNA evidence from fingernail scrapings supposedly held by Hopkinsville police, which could overturn her client's conviction, was non-existent. Bussell was convicted in 2008 at a third trial and sentenced to life in prison for the 1991 slaying of 65-year-old Sue Spears Lail.

The Kentucky New Era reported that Bussell sought retesting of the DNA evidence in an effort to back his claim of innocence or shorten his sentence in Lail's death.

Bussell's initial death sentence was overturned by the Kentucky Supreme Court in 2007.